Munnu: A Boy From Kashmir

By Malik Sajad

A beautifully drawn graphic novel that illuminates the conflicted land of Kashmir, through a young boy’s childhood.

Seven-year-old Munnu is growing up in Indian-administered Kashmir. Life revolves around his family: Mama, Papa, sister Shahnaz, brothers Adil and Akhtar and, his favourite, older brother Bilal. It also revolves around Munnu’s two favourite things – sugar and drawing.

But Munnu’s is a childhood experienced against the backdrop of conflict. Bilal’s classmates are crossing over into the Pakistan-administered portion of Kashmir to be trained to resist the ‘occupation’; Papa and Bilal are regularly taken by the military to identification parades where informers will point out ‘terrorists’; Munnu’s school is closed; close neighbours are killed and the homes of Kashmiri Hindu families lie abandoned, as once close, mixed communities have ruptured under the pressure of Kashmir’s divisions.

Munnu is an amazingly personal insight into everyday life in Kashmir. Closely based on Malik Sajad’s own childhood and experiences, it is a beautiful, evocatively drawn graphic novel that questions every aspect of the Kashmir situation – the faults and responsibilities of every side, the history of the region, the role of Britain and the West, the possibilities for the future. It opens up the story of this contested and conflicted land, while also giving a brilliantly close, funny and warm-hearted portrait of a boy’s childhood and coming-of-age.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Jun 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9780007513734

Malik Sajad

Malik Sajad was born in 1987, in Srinagar, Kashmir. His illustrations and stories have appeared in various local and international publications. He studied Visual Art at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Book preview

cover-page

Malik Sajad

MUNNU

A BOY FROM KASHMIR

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Fourth Estate London

Copyright

Fourth Estate

An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.4thestate.co.uk

This eBook first published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2015

Copyright © Malik Sajad 2015

Malik Sajad asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Source ISBN 9780007513635

Ebook Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9780007513734

Version: 2019-05-10

Many thanks to: Nigel Perkins; Georgia Mason; Charlotte Kotik; Francis J. Greenburger; Hope Sullivan; Indoo Shivdasani, Azad Shivdasani and Amita Malkani; Fayaz Kaloo, Irfan Raheem, Farah Kathwari and Nilima Sheikh; Usmaan Ahmad, Ellie and Nafeesa; Lisa Whitney, Ghazi Kazmi, Adrian Levy and Megan Whilden; Showkat Kathjoo, Akeera, Iftikhar Jaffar, Naushad Gayoor Hassan and Masood Hussain; Zahoor Wani, Naseema Akhtar, Mark Richards and Iffat Fatima.

Dedication

For Abba, who made Fridays special.

Reviews for Munnu

[Annapoorni TS · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Munnu-5⭐
Malik Sajad depicts Kashmiris as hangul deer (the Kashmir stag) - an endangered species, as their habitat has been encroached on by the army.
Can there be a more apt symbolism?

The illustrations are mostly expressionless, but the body language, the narration and the context and dialogue amplify each intense moment.
The detailing in each panel is impressive and impactful.
The family equation is well fleshed out. It's with great care that Sajad has created a balance between the character growth of Munnu- very nuanced and intricate and the political context of #Kashmir. The aspirations of a young boy who wants to be an artist, a young Kashmiri- both are intricately traced out in Munnu.
The harping on about Kashmir being an 'internal matter' of India sounds empty when we realise the complexity of the issue.
Nowhere does it feel that there is too much of one thing.
A #graphicnovel that sets high standards! I absolutely love this one, even more than Maus, and that's saying a lot!

Today is the first anniversary of the #abrogation of #Article370. I have read 4 books set in Kashmir and I don't think I have still fully grasped the complexity of the situation there. What I do know is that human life is the least valuable in all equations that pertain to this Political issue.

[brianfergusonwpg-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Revealing graphic novel from another non-existent, unacknowledged conflict in the "non-existent" state of Kashmir situated between the two countries, each American supplied, nuclear-weapon-equipped, one of which, you probably know which, is itself very unstable. Very much in the vein of his mentor, political graphic journalist Joe Sacco. I've recently reviewed Sacco's book "Palestine", the major difference for me being that I had never heretofore heard that the people of Kashmir, Islamic and Pandit alike, consider themselves separate from India and Pakistan. Another difference is that, similarities aside, this novel has a much more personal feel, written/narrated by a Kashimiri artist. There is a lovely aesthetic feel to the art which may well be linked to Kashmiri artistic tradition. The only quibble that the cover gives no indication how vital the subject matter is.